Topic: BTCXIndia Shutting Operation (Read 5535 times)

Hope you know, this certificates holds value only to banker and ignorant; not someone who is well versed with Bitcoin dynamics. Conventional methods and strategy of money laundering are not applied in Bitcoin ecosystem. Here, money is laundered in totally different way. To simply put, someone with certificate from IIBF is not competent enough to counter money laundering and raise red flag. That was not a invitation to discussion, but statement with conclusion.

I appreciate the cool and calm way dashingriddler explained his points which ultimately helped to remove confusion and doubts anybody might be having after his earlier comment. I will request all the wise and nice guys here to not get angered if others ask basic questions or raise their doubts. Afterall community is disturbed, shocked, enraged by the recent developments hence the doubts, questions are bound toget raised. Please bear and keep patience.

Mr. Kamesh,

I have few direct questions for you. You are free to ignore if not comfortable.

1. Did you try to engage ICICI Bank as Banking Partner specifically giving reference of Coinsecure ? They cannot differentiate between two clients belonging to same business domain.
2. What is the basis of your assurance when you yourself claim there is no bank ready to do banking with you ? What make you believe the banks will change their mind about you in future ?
3. What is different between you and UnoCoin/Coinsecure which resulted in only no banking partner for you ?

I believe answers to above queries will help to clear a lot of confusion around this at present.

Yes that is what I understand as well. I m happy that they are at least not abandoning their existence to bitcoin community.

That means, the site can be used as an online wallet to send/receive BTC (like blockchain.info) but converting FIAT --> BTC and vice versa is disabled?

As previously communicated, BTCXIndia is as of today no longer operating a bitcoin trading platform. The site will remain open as a free of charge bitcoin wallet service, and we are working hard to liaise with our banking partners and banking authorities to ensure that we can re-open trading in the near future.

We would like to extend a big thanks to all our customers for your support and patience with our operations being closed down. We hope to see you back trading with us as soon as we are able to re-open business.

Sincerely,
BTCXIndia

Noted.

Glad that I made that Axis account long back.

+1 to that. are you ready BTCXINDIA.COM or there is more to the story......................?

Sure, I was referring to the terms & conditions and compliance document you had prepared when you started your services. Not regarding the certification you got few months ago - i have received a newsletter from you about this certification. i know you guys took compliance seriously just after you started. i also remember when you were accepting documents to your email and then you put together the web page for it - all good, just the learning curve.

What I am trying to say here is, our compliance was never been lesser than what it should have been. So i was replying to comment by ctptosec.

Are you ctptosec as well or is he your employee ?
Are you fine with re-opening your business if i can help you get a new banking relationship?

Here I am providing our compliance officer certificate; certified by IIBF

I am not sure why you think there is shouting going on here. Is it true that you work for btcxindia ? In that case you may have some specific questions to the community.

Unocoin is violating the compliance? where and when wast the regulatory authority blamed? and where did unocoin ever tell it is sharing customer data? you seriously need to stop assuming things.
On the other hand i know the story behind the compliance document of btcxindia - so you better do not talk about it now.

You think putting that statement by btcxindia is helping someone here? It is not about putting a statement after everything is over. If he did bring up the topic of his bank not supporting him here, there are way too many people including myself who could help him. No use of being "heart broken" now and claiming you did the better thing !

Yes i have requested Benson to lock the thread (after knowing it cannot be removed). There is nothing to hide but i m trying to stop the way the thread is moving as it got mis-guided by you and few others.
However i just requested to unlock momentarily so that i can add my comments (instead of leaving it hanging). you can go to that thread and read it.

Understand that, there was no debate going except my comments getting misinterpreted. We as a community should be more bothered about not getting the wrong words across to public than losing a hot topic for trolling. However, if you have specific concerns, feel free to IM and you know that i will respond.

Lol, I have never appreciated their funny marketing ways and they lost me on day 0 when they posted a fake testimonial of mine on their website. I made this decision as a moderator and nothing else, so don't get FISHY on me :p

1. This topic could have come under main, if OP wanted or could have come under news or off-topic, based on his choosing.

2. I was requested to remove the thread, but he was not trying to hide anything. In fact, he wanted advice and support from the forums, but probably did not understand that this was a matter to be dealt with by lawyers.

3. That topic was started by dashingriddler, if you want an eternally open topic, do start one. This industry is too new to start some low level drama, Bitcoin HAS to grow and daily business offerings cannot become a pivot in the industry.

My View: Was a mistake for them to post that. Banks and financial institutions have 100's of inquiries per day and have a professional way to handle them. But this is a nascent industry and all Businesses need to grow and learn to grow, else there will be an awesome technology with no backbone. If there were no replies on that thread, at my discretion, I could and would have deleted that on request.

This thread is related to a different topic, which is of equal importance. Please do not continue to cross-post.

IT IS ALL VERY FISHY & now you too are joining hands BENSON............

Unanswered QUESTIONS remain:

1. how do you justify this topic to be moved to NEWS section??

2. Did Sathvik (CEO Unocoin.com) wanted to DELETE the thread. What is HE TRYING TO HIDE?

3. the discussion at https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.11330568 is NOT OVER.
IT IS IMPORTANT TOPIC FOR THE COMMUNITY REGARDING LEGALITY. IT SHOULD BE KEPT ETERNALLY OPENED.

Sathvik a advice, if you want to be afraid, the least you can do is get the hell out of Bitcoin business.

YOU CAN'T CRUSH OPEN DEBATE

Regards,

retract "but it seems this is a general policy in India as of today.", maybe this is valid for btcxindia, but has not hampered the others.
I have not said anything apart from that. You'll cannot cause panic by making general statements and induce unsurity without even knowing the status of other businesses.
Apart from that, there have been people who have been a lot more vocal than me. Would appreciate, if you could turn your biases, ego and conspiracies towards them.
I have never mentioned a bad statement about your company and honestly find it intriguing as to why you'll would try to take me on in some places with absolutely no provocation or need.

I have always appreciated Kamesh and wish him the best with his next or pursuant venture.

Your press statement does not make much of a difference to us or anything. It will fade away in time and all that will be left is a question mark or the truth.
I have replied where required, that your generalized statement about Bitcoin in India is presumed and loose, so those that read can understand that Bitcoin still controls tremendous interest across India.

Wish you guys the best of luck!

I did explain when OP requested, that moving and locking does not prevent a new thread from being linked to it and being restarted.
However, it did seem like a sincere request. As there were quite a few contributions from others, I could not delete the thread as per OP's request.
Hence, the lock and move.

Good catch!
I was wondering where the thread went.

Why are you (Benson and UnoCoin)shouting here. Call the press and condemn the BTCXIndia statement else release the press note, which says your( Benson and Unocoin) bankers are supporting the Bitcoin business.

Else give the press note here on your letterheads; I will forward the same to Coindesk and Cryptocoinnews. Hence Coin desk and Crypto coin news will explain an Indian Bitcoin scenario to the world.

You (Unocoin) are keep on violating the compliance ( I cautioned many times here) and now you are blaming the regulatory authorities. If you violate the compliance they will summon, questioned or grilled you, they have right to do. If you take the basic caution then now you needn’t share customer data to the authorities. You are violating the compliance and share the customer sensitive information to the authorities.

At least BTCXIndia gave advance notice to the customers and release the press note. We have to see, is it any of the customer (BTCXIndia customer) facing funds withdrawals or not.

Please share your experience for the funds withdrawals with BTCXIndia; which is really helpful to the other traders.

but does all requests, topic creators make, get approved, even though they fail logic?

how do you justify this topic to be moved to NEWS section?? Sathvik (CEO Unocoin.com) your views......?

Regards,

Since Unocoin and Coinsecure say they have not been having any issues with their banking partners, I believe BTCXIndia has some othe rissues but they prefer to put the blame on banks.
Otherwise they would have found a way to continue their business just like other exchanges.

But I'm glad that the're at least providing enough time to their customers to withdraw their money and they haven't run away like Mt.Gox

Took those actions on request by op of the thread.

Hello Sathvik (CEO Unocoin.com),

the discussion at https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.11330568 is NOT OVER

why has that thread CLOSED?? 

well if you want to be afraid, the least you can do is get the hell out of Bitcoin business. you can't crush open debate

and why has it been moved to Press section from the main INDIA section?? why are you trying to convey here....................??

Benson can you please look into this......................................?

Regards,

Kamlesh (CEO BTCXIndia.com) any clarifications you want to share........we are all ears

Obviously it is bank who does not support you if they refuse to open an account for you without any reason. Unless the legislation say that bitcoin is illegal, banks discriminating bitcoin companies is a known fact

It does not really matter, since there are new accounts added everyday. It can even be randomly selected from a large account pool. Banks must establish a special task force to deal with it, but the effect would still be minimal since those accounts are not in the same bank. In China, bitcoin is legalized as commodity, so you can't shut down private person's account due to commodity trading

Currently no one can say bitcoin is illegal since that will require a law to be written and passed by legislation. But banks mostly reject bitcoin business due to its high rate of fraud and money laundering, they just get mad when they receive police calls every day for certain transactions, all pointing to bitcoin exchange's account

In fact banks are facing such difficulty since the invention of internet, there are more and more fraud and money laundering on internet every day and bitcoin is definitely an attractive medium suitable to carry out such activities. But the thought of closing down bitcoin exchange's account will reduce the criminal activity is naive

No no no no.. That's like shooting in your own foot. No matter what you need bank who knows what you are doing and still support you. Need not really be a nationalised bank per say. Else you cannot run the business.

I think that might work. But isn't it illegal in anyway, or they can freeze your funds if they find out that you are involved in a bitcoin business ?

Something from this :

Maybe you can learn from China. In China, at the end of 2013, the government prohibited banks from providing business for bitcoin exchanges, those exchanges since then have invented several ways to circumvent the regulation

1. Using some B2C business account which have very similar payment pattern as exchanges. A large online retailer could make the bitcoin customer deposit neglectable among thousands of other transactions.

2. Sell account recharging codes on online retailers through many private dealer. Those codes can be redeemed for certain amount of bitcoin/fiat at exchanges

3. Using employee's private account. Each employee and even his/her relatives open 10-20 private account at many different banks, each of the account is assigned to one customer support, and used to handle customer deposit/withdraw for one day in the week, shifting between them and constantly adding new accounts

This last form in principle is the best way to deal with banks in the long run. They managed to get hundreds of private account and use them occasionally, it is decentralized banking practice which chinese government had no way to stop (Has been quite effective since the ban of chinese banking service to bitcoin exchanges)

It is interesting, if you look at the family Rothschilds's origin from wiki, there are some text like this:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
unlike the court Jews of earlier centuries, who had financed and managed European noble houses, but often lost their wealth through violence or expropriation, the new kind of international bank created by the Rothschilds was impervious to local attacks. Their assets were held in financial instruments, circulating through the world as stocks, bonds and debts. Changes made by the Rothschilds allowed them to insulate their property from local violence: "Henceforth their real wealth was beyond the reach of the mob, almost beyond the reach of greedy monarchs."
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That's sad... keeping in mind I just registered at BTCXIndia a couple of days ago...
Banks should try to show a little more interest and faith in this concept of digital currencies. It's not as if they are suffering severe losses in this field. Besides BTCXIndia should also state clearly why such thing happened in the first place. I think it can be safely assumed that banks can't just deny serving without informing in advance 

In bitcoin business, we need to tell about change in bank account to customers as they need to stand sending INR to the new bank account. so it cannot just go under the radar.

Shutting down due to banks since they are no longer serving bitcoin businesses is vague. From the article that I read http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-btxcindia-to-close/ , which I suppose is also a statement from the owners, it says that its because of losing their banking partner.

Have they actually tried other banks ? Or is it just an assumption ? . If I owned the company, I would just shift to the other bank , and not tell them about my previous bank closing my accounts, and not cooperating for the business.

Kamlesh (CEO BTCXIndia.com) can you a be a bit clear here?? In this information age, you JUST CANNOT HIDE ANYTHING.
sooner or later- things will come out themselves................

I m from a small town called Tumkur where the population is less than a few Lakhs. Have more than 50 banks out of which about 15 are nationalised. Among the rest most are localised but provide NEFT services.

Not exactly safe heaven, on P2P exchanges, you still need to deal with someone, preferably a trusted pro trader with more than 500 feedback. But this kind of traders' bank account can all be taken down by a simple test purchase which will show their receiving bank account. And if you go after other low credit traders or setup your own advertisement, you will risk of being scammed

And localbitcoins are banned in Germany due to too many fraudulent activities on its platform, and that is a known problem for P2P exchanges overall: Even there are some legitimate and vigilant pro traders on the platform, there are just too many scams and man in the middle attack on the platform, the platform itself will become the scapegoat of those scammers

Not sure why u r saying India is a land of million banks, but it is for sure that more than 20 can not provide a secure online banking service.

India is a land of million banks - the options on this front cannot get exhausted so soon. At least not just in a single day.

Another ambiguous post by Kamesh.

On the one hand they dare other exchanges("CAN operate", "best of LUCK") to operate by "assuring" they "explored all options" and then take the opposite approach & "assures" they'll be back competing "soon again"??

Shall wait for their "comment in more detail" after they have "unwound operations".

I dont get a simple thing here. If a bank can give support to UnoCoin & Coinsecure, why wont they give support to BTCXindia ?

Hi all, Kamesh here, CEO of BTCXIndia.

I hear lots of upset voices, but trust me, no one is more upset then we are. Our staff are losing their jobs, and we are losing what we spent lots of money and effort building during the last 18 months. We have the most to lose by closing down, so I can assure you we have explored all options.

We will not comment in more detail on this until we have unwound operations, instead we are focusing on paying out remaining balances to customers and ensuring they can liquidate their positions.

I've personally been involved in the Indian bitcoin space since 2013, and want nothing more than for it to thrive. If Unocoin and CoinSecure can continue operations that's great, and I wish you both the best of luck. And rest assure BTCXIndia will be back competing with you soon again!

Nice to know that u r into bitcoin at such an early age. Direct trading exchanges like LocalBitcoins.com or www.100bit.co.in are immune to the banking problem as they do not need to handle FIAT directly. This type of exchanges will always stay and provide platform to bitcoin buyers & sellers.

This! Bitcoin was invented to eliminate such barriers and authorities, be it even tech-savvy authorities like the US or China, cannot regulate bitcoin. It is technically not possible.

But my brother, this thread is not about that. This thread is specifically about BTCXIndia.

really sad to hear that..I am also an indian boy just I am of 17+ so I don't have documents to make a bank account but I have made my own ways to keep my life comfortable.I am a localbitcoin user so I always suggest to use it

+1

Sometimes there will be multiple reasons.

Unocoin is not facing issues with any bankers right now

as Benson said, they can always move their business to Axis, ICICI.....BTCXIndia.com is hiding something......

That is a misleading statement.

What's the meaning of this "but it seems this is a general policy in India as of today." ? A bad news for all bitcoiners in India.

I would expect, no one will misunderstand the current happenings as authoritive pressure against Bitcoin. It is as simple as survival of the banks and I believe BTCXIndia did not explore all banking alternatives. In any case, bitcoin users in general DO NOT need to panic. There are always direct trading alternatives like www.LocalBitcoins.com or www.100bit.co.in, where banks can not do anything. Shutting down of real time exchanges will at most hurt the INR-bitcoin traders, which I believe is a very small community. All the big traders have account in foreign exchanges and they'll remain unaffected. No entrepreneurship venture should be affected by this as changing bitcoin to FIAT is still as easy as before.

yes it actually seems fishy. Maybe they are shutting down due to something else and putting the blame on the banks.

This is very sad but at the same time the abrupt nature of this announcement makes me skeptic.
Can someone from BTCXIndia throw light on what they did to resist this?

This statement on their website is very lame : "We have investigated the possibility to operate through other banks, but it seems this is a general policy in India as of today."

You will close down your business because "it seems"? And not even try to reach out to others in the domain?

axis has some Government of India partnership, so you have some official government approval...sort of....

thanks, I think btcxindia also uses icici, unocoin deals via hdfc- sure about that.

Axis and ICICI Bank.

Benson who are your bankers? may be btcxindia & unocoin can engage with them......

Regards,

Coinsecure will not be shutting down.
We have confirmed this with our banks as well.

Quite shocking. One of the best sites shutting down. If banks are not comfortable then is it Coinsecure & Unocoin also shutting its operations in coming days?

what the heck 

can anybody from BTCXIndia.com throw some light??

This is bad news all around. Bitcoin is not illegal in the country. The powers that be must see this as a real threat.

Really sad to heard, Unocoin also facing so many problems and inquiring by authorities.

So much happening behind the scene.

Just received this from BTCXIndia. What the hell is happening.